Horticultural growers have a need to periodically place growing plants (e.g., seedlings, shrubs, flowers, and the like) in pots of sufficient size so as to accommodate future growth. Once the potted plants have attained a desired size, therefore, they can be sold to retail nurseries, landscape companies or the like for transplanting to a permanent site.
Potting machines which assist the horticultural growers in placing their plants into soil-containing pots are well known. In this regard, most potting machines include a soil infeed conveyor which transfers potting soil from a soil supply to a soil lift conveyer which elevates the soil over and into pots travelling along a closed-loop pot track. Conventional potting machines, however, frequently experience difficulties in overfeeding/underfeeding soil to the lift conveyor since the speeds of the soil infeed and lift conveyors (and hence their respective soil flow rates) are independently set.
In this connection, jamming of the soil lift conveyor can sometimes occur in a soil overfeed situation since the lift conveyor is travelling downwardly at its pick-up region (i.e., the junction of the soil infeed conveyor and the soil lift conveyor). That is, since the soil lift conveyor is moving downwardly relative to the soil being delivered by the soil-infeed conveyor at their junction (and thus has to travel around the bottom-most conveyor sprocket and then upwardly to the discharge chute of the machine), there is a real possibility that the lift conveyor will jam in a soil overfeed situation due to soil being packed around the bottommost sprocket. When such a jam occurs, the potting activities associated with the machine must be suspended while the packed soil is removed thereby leading to unproductive time.
What has been needed, therefore, is a potting machine which reduces (if not eliminates entirely) at least some of the disadvantages of conventional potting machines. It is towards fulfilling such a need that the present invention is directed.
Generally, the present invention is embodied in a potting machine whereby the soil infeed and lift conveyors are operated continuously, but are synchronized so as to achieve a proper soil flow rate. In addition (or alternatively), the soil lift conveyor of this invention moves upwardly at the juncture with the soil infeed conveyor. As a result, soil is substantially prevented from being transferred rearwardly into the lift conveyor housing where it could jam the lift conveyor's lower sprocket. Furthermore, since the soil being lifted by the lift conveyor is emptied into the discharge chute of the machine at the apex of the lift conveyor's run, any soil which may become dislodged from the individual lift conveyor slats falls by gravity to the juncture of the lift conveyor and the soil infeed conveyor where it again is presented to the lift conveyor slats.
The lift conveyor and the soil infeed conveyor are most preferably synchronized by means of a chain-and-sprocket synchronizer assembly. Thus, according to the present invention, a single electric motor, preferably under control by a logic programmable controller (LPC), is coupled operatively to the drive shaft of the lift conveyor and the motive force provided by the lift conveyor drive shaft is transferred to the input shaft of the soil infeed conveyor via chain-and-sprocket synchronizer assembly. Auxiliary components, such as the indexing assembly for the pot track and a reciprocal drill (which serves to drill a recess in the soil deposited into the pots by the lift conveyor), are thus capable of being driven collectively by another LPC-controlled electric motor and synchronized independently to the speeds of the soil-infeed and lift conveyors.
Further aspects and advantages of this invention will become more clear after careful consideration is given to the detailed description of the preferred exemplary embodiments thereof which follows.